Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Waxman Continues Crusade Against Big Pharma's Profit-Padding From New Perch As Lobbyist
The Washington Post: Henry Waxman Isn’t Done Fighting With Drug Companies
Henry Waxman spent four decades in Congress relentlessly going after drug companies for what he charged was their profit-padding. The California Democrat left Capitol Hill in 2015, but he hasn’t given up battling big pharma. Waxman is now working as a lobbyist for hospitals and medical clinics to protect a drug discount program, known as 340B, that he helped create 24 years ago. He is urging federal regulators to resist calls by the drug industry’s leading trade group to put new restrictions on the program, which was designed to help hospitals better treat poor patients by requiring drug makers to offer medicines at a steep discount. (Ho, 10/12)
Marketplace: Study Shows Coupons Lead To Big Profits For Drugmakers
In the last few years, there's been such a spike in drug coupons, pharmaceutical companies have barely been able to print them fast enough. Coupons help patients shoulder the cost of expensive prescriptions, but a new paper out in the New England Journal of Medicine finds certain coupons are also a windfall for drug companies. Harvard Business School economist Leemore Dafny, Northwestern’s Chris Ody and UCLA’s Matt Schmitt found when manufacturers issued coupons right before a generic competitor entered the market, branded drug sales soared by 60 percent. (Gorenstein, 10/12)
